


One Crowded Hour

by Jessa



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, Eventual First kiss, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Helping, Light Angst, M/M, Other Additional Tags May Be Added, Pride, Tags May Change, meet cute
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 22:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29865225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessa/pseuds/Jessa
Summary: For the HM500: the song ‘Mercy’ by Shawn MendesIt’s sure been a week and *then* I was triggered by something unfortunate yesterday and it’s Mardi Gras weekend where I live so I decided to take the little pride mention in the lyrics to this song to make me feel better and inspire this, as well as this image from the lyrics: I stand a hundred feet / But I fall when I'm around yaIt cheered me up to write this, and to think about where it might go, so I hope there’s something in it for you too 💙💙I think I’ll do three more parts to this, so one for each of these song prompts this month. So the next part will post next weekend after the next song prompt comes out :)
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Kudos: 5
Collections: Hunter's Moon 500 Prompts





	One Crowded Hour

There’s a song Alec likes which fits this feeling. The one he’s feeling now but doesn’t know how to name, from here on the curb, sat where he is, as the roar of engines whip it up inside his stomach. 

It makes his breath pull at his lungs from high in his chest, not deep down in his diaphragm. It makes his skin tingle from inside his pores, all the way out to the tips of each hair. As though these were all immersed in a cinematic ocean caught on hi-fidelity film, and every atom was miles long and projected up walls miles longer.

The feeling is huge, and as awkward. Like over-large feet which he struggles to gather, as ungainfully as the rest of his limbs, as crowds who’ve been amassing from behind him all afternoon start to surge their way forward. 

Shins and knees push against his back until Alec has no viable choice anymore but to emerge from his safe hiding place behind the barrier. And stand, speedily, ducking his head as low-key grumbles ensue from behind him. 

He gives in to them. He lets people feet shorter in front until he’s back three or four rows from where he’s waited for hours to get the best view. And three or four rows become five or six. And five or six become the extremity of the curbside crowd, watching the first groups march down the street. 

Alec fumbles for his camera, hiding behind the lens but there’s still so much pride that even this deep in the crowd, and through layers of lens, Alec can’t stop the smile that’s splitting his face. Where he stands to watch this won’t matter tomorrow, all that will matter is that he did. The over-large feet and the grumbling forgotten. It’s happening already. The good kind of amnesia.

A view through his lens brings it on acutely, of one beautiful man in particular, dancing atop a float. Head crowned by a faux-hawk coif and in possession of the most mesmerising kohl-lined eyes Alec knows he’s ever seen. And for a portion of time he doesn’t care he can’t measure, they seem to look only at Alec.

Alec does know how to name this feeling. It lasts until his camera grinds to a halt at the end of the roll, and he squats down, to change it quickly. Big thumbs fumbling the canister and dropping it to the asphalt. It rolls into ringed hands, which collect it, and pass it back to Alec. And he looks up and is surprised to see the beautiful man in particular. 

Beneath the parade lights, his nearly-bare body sparkles with more glitter than Alec’s ever dreamed of. When their hands touch, as the man returns his wayward canister, Alec doesn’t think he knows English anymore. He does think they both spend too long touching, for two strangers passing something lost between them, but luckily they don’t remain that for very long.

“I’m Magnus,” he says.

“A-Alec.”


End file.
